Journal of Manufacturing Processes 36 (2018) 398–404

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Journal of Manufacturing Processes

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Feasibility study on direct flame impingement heating applied for the T

solution heat treatment, forming and cold die quenching technique
⁎
Zhutao Shao, Jun Jiang , Jianguo Lin
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The solution heat treatment, forming and cold die quenching (HFQ) process has been developed and adopted for
Aluminium sheet heating forming high strength complex-shaped components of light alloys in the automotive industry. In order to exploit
Hot stamping and increase the competitiveness of this technology, production cycle time and manufacturing costs need to be
Direct flame impingement heating reduced to enable high productivity and energy efficiency. This can be realised by reducing the cycle time for
Aluminium alloy 6082
heating a metallic sheet to its solution heat treatment temperature during the HFQ process, and by decreasing
post ageing time. Rapid heating methods are capable of providing a solution to be integrated into this novel
forming technique of HFQ. This paper presents feasibility study on the adoption of the direct flame impingement
(DFI) heating method that has a high potential for non-ferrous blanks to achieve higher heating rate in HFQ
processes, compared to convection heating in a conventional furnace. The adaptability of DFI heating for HFQ
process has been validated, in terms of capability of high heating rate, quality of surface layer examination and
lap-shear strength measurement of bonded samples.

1. Introduction
High strength aluminium alloys, e.g. AA6082, AA6111 and AA7075,
are suitable lightweight materials for manufacturing automobile body
structures, which can provide a weight saving of up to 40% over steel in
most applications without compromising safety [1]. These alloys have a
moderately high stiffness to weight ratio, good weldability, recycl-
ability, and a high level of corrosion resistance [2]. However, forming
high strength aluminium sheets is challenging because of their rela-
tively low formability and high springback at room temperature.
The solution heat treatment, forming and cold die quenching (HFQ)
technique [3] was invented over 10 years ago and has been exclusively
industrialised by Impression Technologies Ltd. as the world-first suc-
cessful process for forming high strength complex shaped aluminium
components. In a typical HFQ process, aluminium sheets are first he-
ated to a target solution heat treatment temperature at which hardening
phase particles, i.e. precipitates, are gradually resolved into aluminium
matrix during soaking. The heat treated sheets are then transferred to a
cold die press to be simultaneously formed and quenched [4,5]. A rapid
heating method for solution heat treatment is required to increase
productivity, and further reduce turnover cycle time, energy con-
sumption and thus overall cost. This will significantly accelerate the
adoption process of this highly enabling technique for the automotive
industry.
Existing heating methods need to be optimised in order to con-
siderably reduce the heat treatment time prior to forming, which is
currently using a conventional electric or gas furnace. In addition, with
the development of the HFQ process, predetermined temperature pro-
files in metallic blanks are required, which cannot be easily achieved
using a conventional furnace. A comparison of existing heating methods
for heat treatment of blanks for sheet metal forming applications has
been carried out and presented in Section 2.
Unfortunately, none of these methods are suitable for high
throughput heating of aluminium alloys in the HFQ process due to ei-
ther low heating efficiency or low flexibility, which results in even
higher system costs. Direct flame impingement (DFI) heating is an al-
ternative method to realise rapid heating for aluminium sheets. It
provides the advantages of a rapid heating rate, high heating efficiency,
low energy consumption and high cost-effectiveness.
In this work, a feasibility study on the DFI heating applied, parti-
cularly, for the HFQ process is performed and presented in terms of
achievable high heating rates, heating rate effect on surface quality for
subsequent bonding, lap-shear strength and microstructure examina-
tion, and a comparison with the conventional furnace heating method is
also shown in this paper.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jun.jiang@imperial.ac.uk (J. Jiang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2018.10.020
Received 5 May 2018; Accepted 19 October 2018
Available online 14 November 2018
1526-6125/ Crown Copyright © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
Z. Shao et al.
2. A review of current heating technologies for hot forming
Convection heating in a furnace using fuel or electricity has long
heating time and low productivity. This heating method is currently
widely adopted by the automotive industry for hot steel stamping due
to its simplicity and availability. For example, 30–40 m long furnaces
with an automatic conveying system are used to preheat steel blanks,
for which at least 3–4 min heating time is required for a sheet thickness
of 1.5–2.5 mm because of low heating efficiency [6]. The heating effi-
ciency is even lower for heating aluminium sheet, since it can take over
5 min (roughly twice as long) for the same conventional furnace to heat
an uncoated medium-size aluminium sheet with the thickness of 2 mm.
These types of heating furnaces must be continuously operated to avoid
long start-up delays in practical production, which would otherwise
cause a drop in productivity.
A short heating time can be realised by resistance heating, which
connects a sheet blank to electrodes alternatively to take current flow
and to be heated by Joule’s effect, but it is feasible only for regular
shape of blanks with favourable dimensions [7] and temperature uni-
formity is exceptionally challenging for hot stamping applications [8].
In the HFQ process, irregularly shaped aluminium sheets are usually
fabricated and used for forming in order to enable a maximum draw in
of sheet materials. Mori et al. [9] studied the application of rapid re-
sistance heating for warm and hot stamping of steel sheets to reduce the
oxidation and temperature drop during sheet transferring, but the non-
uniform temperature field in the contact area between the electrode
and the sheet was observed. It has been found that this method highly
depends on the electric resistance and the shape of the metallic sheet
[10] even if it tends to provide an efficient heating procedure for the
small scale of the blank.
Although induction heating has been used extensively for tempering
materials, it is not commonly used for heating metallic blanks because
coil design is difficult for efficient heating, particularly for heating
complex shaped blanks. Since induction heating [11] is a contactless
heating method by using induction coils to induce eddy currents in an
electrically conductive sheet within a specific distance, heating rate is
determined by the frequency of the induced current and the material
properties. The energy efficiency of induction heating is higher due to
less heat loss compared to convection heating in a furnace, but it has
low efficiency for heating non-ferrous metallic sheet with low magnetic
permeability, such as aluminium alloy, and can suffer from temperature
uniformity issues. Infrared heating [12] has similar issues and low ef-
ficiency, and it is inefficient for uncoated aluminium blanks and suffers
similar temperature uniformity issues.
DFI heating offers an alternative method in metal forming processes
for heating blanks by hot gas or flame generated via combustion of fuel,
which increases significantly the heating efficiency and the heat
transfer rate [13], because most of non-renewable electricity sources
(coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc.) involve burning a fuel, which converts
at best 45% of the heat produced into electricity. In a DFI furnace, a
number of high speed burning jets are usually used to obtain high heat
transfer efficiency from the combustion products to the load, and the
arrangement of jets and operating parameters, such as nozzle dimen-
sions, number of nozzles, distance between nozzles and the metal load,
fuel supply and velocity of gas flow, need to be designed and optimised
in order to realise uniform temperature distribution or predetermined
temperature profiles in blanks. However, fundamental research on DFI
[14] focuses on the investigation of combustion process, flame type and
heat transfer processes, and it has not been studied for applications to
sheet metal forming. A feasibility study is presented in the following
sections to extend the applications of DFI to HFQ forming.
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 36 (2018) 398–404
3. Methodology
3.1. Theoretical analysis of heating efficiency
According to the classic heat transfer theory, heat transfer formula
can be expressed as Eq. (1), where Q is heat content in Joules, m is
mass, c is specific heat and ΔT is a change in temperature. Heat transfer
rate can be presented by Newton’s law of cooling in Eq. (2), where Φ is
heat transfer, A is contact area, Δt is time difference and h is convective
heat transfer coefficient which can be calculated by Eq. (3). Eq. (3) is an
empirical equation proposed by Martin [15] in order to calculate the
heat transfer coefficient NuD , where r is the distance from the centre of
the workpiece, D is the diameter of the nozzle, H is the distance from
the nozzle to the workpiece, λ and Pr are constants and Re is Reynolds
number calculated by Eq. (4), where ue is the velocity of the air flow
and v is the kinematic viscosity of the air flow.
Q = cmΔT (1)
Φ = hAΔt (2)
hr 1 − 1.1D r
= NuD = 2 Re0.5
D Pr
0.42 (1 + 0.005 Re0.05 )0.5
D
λ 1 + 0.1(H D − 6) D r (3)
ue D
ReD =
ν (4)
NuD = 0.54(Gr Pr)1/4 (5)
By the consideration of the radiation loss in Eq. (5), the relationship of
heating time and temperature of the workpiece can be calculated. For a
case study with parameters of the blank radius r of 40 mm, distance
from nozzle to the workpiece H of 30–55 mm and a nozzle diameter of
30 mm, the effects of distance H and air flow velocity ue (in a range of
2–8 m/s) on the heating rate are shown in Fig. 1. The flame temperature
can be estimated by using Adiabatic flame temperature calculator and
fuel is methane (CH4) with an equivalence ratio of 1.0.
Based on the theoretical model introduced previously, it can be seen
that the heating rate of an aluminium blank with a diameter of 40 mm
and a thickness of 1.5 mm can be almost doubled if the velocity of air
flow is raised from 2 m/s to 4 m/s, but less improvement can be ob-
served if velocity of air flow is raised further from 4 m/s to 8 m/s. Only
around 10% temperature difference can be obtained at a different ve-
locity of air flow when the distance from nozzle to workpiece is
changed from 30 mm to 55 mm.
3.2. Experimental programme of DFI heating
3.2.1. Material and specimen
Aluminium alloy 6082 sheets of T6 temper with the thickness of
1.5 mm and the diameter of 180 mm (as seen in the Fig.2), which is one
Fig. 1. Heating rate at different velocities of air flow and distances from the
heating nozzle to the workpiece.
Z. Shao et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 36 (2018) 398–404

Fig. 2. Dimensions and thermocouple locations of an aluminium alloy 6082 T6

blank for DFI heating study.

Table 1
Chemical compositions of AA6082.
Element Si Fe Cu Mn Mg Cr Zn Ti Al

Weight 0.90 0.38 0.08 0.42 0.70 0.02 0.05 0.03 Balance Fig. 4. Effect of fuel equivalence ratio on heating rate and temperature dis-
proportion tribution (solid lines show temperature measured at the central point of the
(%) blank (T1) and dash lines show temperature measured at the distance to mid-
length of 40 mm (T2)).

of the most promising high strength aluminium alloys for automotive

parts production, were chosen as an exemplar and used for the com-
parison of DFI heating and furnace heating under the HFQ conditions.
The chemical composition of AA6082 is shown in Table 1, for which
different compositions of the sheets will affect the formation of che-
mical components on the surface layer of samples during the heat
treatment. K-type thermocouples were welded on the mid-width line of
the specimen along the diameter at the centre (T1) and the distance of
40 mm (T2) in order to monitor the temperature history and tempera-
ture gradient during the heating.
3.2.2. Experimental set-up
Fig. 3 shows the experimental set-up in a combustion unit. The unit
is made of air rotameters, fuel, swirl mixing chamber and combustion.
The flow was controlled by a software system in order to determine the
velocity of gas flow and fuel equivalence ratio accurately. The lower
combustion unit with the diameter of 30 mm was used first, which was
considered to be sufficient since the thickness of the sample was only
1.5 mm. The distance between the sample and the lower nozzle was
initially set to 55 mm. Thermocouples attached to the sample sheet on
the top surface were connected to a data logger to record the tem-
perature history. The entire combustion unit was operated in an open
environment for this study.
Fig. 3. Set-up of the DFI heating unit in an open environment.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. DFI heating for aluminum alloys sheets
4.1.1. Effect of fuel equivalence ratio
Fig. 4 shows the comparison of temperature history by using pure
methane (CH4) (equivalence ratio = 1.0) and 80% methane (CH4)
(equivalence ratio = 0.8). The velocity of gas flow was 2 m/s. Tem-
perature was measured at central point, T1 (solid lines in Fig. 3) and the
location of 40 mm, T2 (dash lines in Fig. 3). It was found that heating
rate of central point was 13.3 °C/s by using pure methane in an open
environment and it was 10.6 °C/s by using 80% methane instead.
Compared to the average heating rate of 2–3 °C/s measured in a thermal
furnace for the same size of blank, it was about 4–5 times improvement
in terms of heating rate. The maximum temperature difference of 60 °C
within a diameter of 40 mm was observed during the heating process.
The uniformity of temperature distribution can be affected by many
factors, such as the distance between blank and nozzle, velocity of gas,
flame temperature, heat loss during heating and open or closed en-
vironment, etc. These parameters can be optimised easily in order to
further increase the heating efficiency.
4.1.2. Effect of gas flow rate
The effect of gas flow rate on the heating rate of samples is shown in
Fig. 5. In an open environment, heating rate of central point T1 in the
circular sample was 13.3 °C/s when gas flow rate was 2 m/s and heating
rate of central point T1 increased to 25.1 °C/s when gas flow rate in-
creased to 4 m/s. This means that the heating rate can be doubled if gas
flow rate is doubled. Rapid heating rate can be achieved efficiently by
DFI heating. DFI heating would be also more flexible for the heating
process than heating metal sheets in a furnace for the aim of pre-
determined temperature profile in a metal sheet since the parameters
for DFI can be controlled independently. The maximum temperature
difference of 85 °C within a diameter of 40 mm was observed in an open
environment, but this can be decreased by optimising heating para-
meters in future. It is also observed that dual nozzles heating from the
top and bottom side of the metal sheet can double the heating rate, and
heating efficiency can be improved in a closed environment since the
heat loss from fuel burning would be reduced significantly.

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Z. Shao et al.
Fig. 5. The effect of gas flow rate on heating rate (solid lines show temperature
measured at the central point of the blank (T1) and dash lines show tempera-
ture measured at the distance to mid-length of 40 mm (T2)).
4.1.3. Discussion
An array of such high-velocity flame jets impinging on a workpiece
can be designed and optimised to provide a uniform or predetermined
heating and temperature profile in a metal sheet, once the DFI heating
method is integrated to HFQ. A schematic of DFI module arrangement is
shown in Fig. 6, which can be used for heating up metallic blanks by
connecting DFI modules to a controllable software system. The ob-
tained heating rate and temperature profile using DFI demonstrated
that, compared to heating in a furnace, significantly higher heat
transfer rate at the surface of the metal sheet and considerably lower
heat loss can be achieved using a DFI furnace. But further optimisation
of operating parameters and heating environment is required to per-
form in future in order to achieve a higher heating rate and more
uniform temperature distribution in the workpiece.
4.2. Characterisation analysis of surface layer and cross section
4.2.1. Heat treatment of samples
Various HFQ testing temperature profiles of heating and cooling
processes for AA6082 are shown in Fig. 7. The aluminum sheet was
heated to the solution heat treatment temperature in a range of
525–545 °C [16] at a heating rate of 1.8, 3, 30 °C/s to allow the hard-
ening precipitates to dissolve into solid solution matrix. Once the
temperature of the specimen reached the programmed one, various
soaking time was selected for solution heat treatment in a range of 1 s to
1 min, and then water quenched to room temperature, which main-
tained a supersaturated solid solution in the material. A standard ageing
Fig. 6. Flexible array of DFI modules.
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 36 (2018) 398–404
Fig. 7. Temperature profile of heating, quenching and ageing processes of
AA6082.
Table 2
Test matrix of conditions by DFI and thermal furnace.
Heating rate (°C/s) by Heating rate (°C/s) in Furnace
DFI
3 20 30 3 20 30
Soaking time (s) 1 √ √ √
30 √ √
60 √ √
process of 9 h at 190 °C was applied after to enable fine and well-dis-
tributed hardening precipitates to appear in order to regain alloy’s
strength. A test matrix of conditions by DFI and thermal furnace is
presented in Table 2. Surface layer analysis was performed under each
testing condition.
100 mm × 25 mm × 1.5 mm samples of AA6082 were DFI heated
using the same heating facility, as shown in Fig. 3, to study the changes
of surface layer after DFI heating. One pair of K-type thermocouples
was attached on the side of the sample along the width direction, and
connected to a data logger in order to record temperature history. In
contrast, for furnace heating, to make a better comparison of surface
layers with a similar heating rate, a target temperature of 525–545 °C
was reached on two steel blocks. These two blocks then directly
clamped an aluminium sample to achieve a high heating rate from 20 to
36 ℃/s. It is noticed that, in this case, heating rate can only be achieved
at 1.8 to 3 ℃/s in the absence of two hot blocks in the furnace.
4.2.2. Results of wettability tests
The presence of oxide layers or contaminants on the surface of an
AA6082 sample can significantly reduce the subsequent bonding
property for assembling. In order to quantify this effect, contact angle is
used to measure the wettability, an important bonding or adherence
parameter, of the solid surface by a liquid [17]. In general, less than 90°
of contact angle is considered to be hydrophilic and larger than 90° of
Z. Shao et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 36 (2018) 398–404

Fig. 8. Measurement of contact angles under various HFQ conditions.

contact angle is considered to be hydrophobic. The smaller the contact

angle, potentially the better for subsequent bonding properties.
Fig. 8 shows the results of contact angle measurement after different
heat treatment processes by DFI and furnace. The values of contact
angle for samples after heat treated by DFI are in a range of 61.7°–74.0°,
which are higher than those of as-received samples and samples heat
treated in a furnace (38°–53.3°). This suggests that the surface condition
was changed to some extent even if only CO2 and H2O were generated
from fuel burning. After subsequent 9 h ageing process in the furnace,
contact angles reduced slightly by 5%–15% at most of the conditions.
Although furnace heated samples showed more hydrophilic character-
istics than DFI treated samples, all samples had contact angles less than
86°, which are the cases of being hydrophilic.

4.2.3. Results of surface layer examination

Surface chemistries of samples were examinated by FTIR (Fourier-
transform infrared spectroscopy) which is one of the most versatile and
powerful techniques for the characterisation of materials’ surface and
element analysis. The analysed results are shown in Fig. 9. A range of
various surface chemistries is observed for all samples with quite thin
oxide layers. Both heating rate and soaking time can affect the levels of
chemistries in oxide layers of samples. The hydrocarbon (C–H) and
magnesium in the oxide films are high for relatively long DFI treated
time compared to those for furnace treated samples, which potentially
caused low wetting characteristics. Nevertheless, the levels of hydro-
carbon, hydration (OH), absorbed water and magnesium oxide (MgO)
decreased significantly after ageing process conducted in a furnace,
especially for DFI heated samples with long soaking time, which would
improve the surface quality for subsequent bonding. With a short
soaking time of DFI heating, there was a little difference in surface layer
analysis between samples with ageing and samples without ageing.
In a typical HFQ process for aluminium alloys, only a short soaking
time is required while a high heating rate is applied during the heating
process in order to reduce grain growth which would potentially de-
teriorate strength, ductility and toughness. Therefore, according to the
results of wettability (Fig. 8) and surface layer quality analysis (Fig. 9),
DFI heated samples are comparable to those of conventional furnace
heated ones under high heating rates and short soaking time.
4.2.4. Microstructure of sample cross section
The microstructure (grain structure) at the cross sections of heat-
treated samples were revealed, as seen in Fig.10, by an optical micro-
scope under polarised light. The samples were mechanically ground and
Fig. 9. FTIR spectra of surface chemistry for surface characterisation after
furnace heat treatment and DFI heat treatment.
polished with OPS to a mirror finish and then anodised the polished
cross-sections using Barker’s reagent at 20–30 V for 1–2 min at ambient
temperature.
Similar grain structure, compared to as-received materials, was re-
vealed for the furnace heated samples, except the sample treated in a
relatively high heating rate (20 ℃/s) and long soaking time (30 s)
which has largely coarser grains close to sample surface along the cross
section. This means that, for the material of AA6082, long soaking time
at a high heating rate in a furnace could cause grain growth in the
material and low heating rate is beneficial for avoiding rapid grain
growth. Similarly, no obvious inhomogeneous grain structure dis-
tribution was found in the DFI heat treated samples under various heat
treatment conditions, as shown in Fig. 10(b); therefore, grain growth
along sample cross section is not notable, which potentially improve
material strength and ductility. However, according to Fig. 10(c), grain
growth can be generally observed after the ageing process in a furnace,
especially for sample pre-DFI treated at a heating rate of 20 ℃/s and

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Fig. 11. Dimensions of the specimen for lap-shear strength testing.

to the standard BS ISO 4587:2003, the shape and dimensions of the

assembled specimen are defined in Fig. 11. The bonded region is
12.5 mm × 25 mm and clamping region for tensile tests is 37.5 mm ×
25 mm. The same conditions were applied, as shown in Table 2, to all
heat treated samples. The samples were assembled by using the auto-
motive adhesive of Dow Betamate 2098, which is a two component
200 μm glass beads containing epoxy-based adhesive, especially de-
veloped and commonly used for the body shop and the repair of ve-
hicles [19]. Bonding area was cleaned with heptane, clamped and cured
at 60 ℃ for 2 h. The thickness of the adhesive is 0.2 mm. Spacers were
used between the grip and the assembly during shear strength testing
by a universal tensile test machine so that the applied force can be
applied to the adhesive bond and no extra bending was generated to the
assemblies. The test procedure was referred to the standard of ASTM D
1002.

4.3.2. Comparison of the lap-shear strength of AA6082 heated by DFI and

furnace
Fig. 12 shows results of the lap-shear strength of AA6082 assemblies
treated by DFI and furnace at a range of heating rates and soaking time.
As-received materials presented 40% cohesion failure mode and the
majority of other bonds after heat treatment presented adhesive failure
mode. It was found that all samples after heat treatment had lower
shear strength than as-received samples. Long soaking time after a rapid
heating process decreased the shear strength of the corresponding as-
sembly. The DFI treated samples have slightly better average shear
strength compared to the furnace treated ones. It is noted that the ad-
hesive or surface cleaning process used in this paper may not be the
most promising one. Further improvement in the shear strength of
bonded samples can certainly be achieved as demonstrated by suc-
cessful adhesive bonding of furnace heat treated car parts.

Fig. 10. Microstructure of polished cross-sections of different heat-treated

samples and the squares highlight the grain growth areas.

soaking time of 30 s. In summary, DFI heating will not affect the uni-
formity of grain distribution but heating in a furnace with a high
heating rate and long soaking time can result in rapid grain growth in
the material, which could affect mechanical properties of AA6082, such
as low ductility and low material strength.

4.3. Measurement of lap-shear strength

4.3.1. Adhesive bonding procedure

Lap-shear strength test was used to investigate the bonding strength
of DFI and furnace heated samples after the analysis of the wettability
and surface layer (Section 4.2.2 and 4.2.3). In this work, single lap-
shear strength test was conducted by stretching a single-overlap joint Fig. 12. Results of lap-shear strength tests (Solid bars indicate DFI heat treated
between a rigid assembly. It is the most widely used method to obtain samples; dashed bars represent furnace heat treated samples; failure mode
shear strength of bonded products due to its simplicity [18]. According (cohesive or adhesive (0% cohesive)) is presented within each bar).

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Z. Shao et al.
5. Conclusions
Feasibility study of DFI has been carried out to develop a more ef-
ficient and effective heating method in order to further improve the
productivity of the HFQ process. The rapid heating rate of over 10 °C/s
has been obtained by DFI on AA6082 sheets of 1.5 mm. Various heating
profiles applied to HFQ technique were designed and achieved by using
the proposed DFI heating and conventional furnace heating methods,
respectively. By conducting a vigorous study of effects on material
properties, including surface layer chemistry, wettability, bonding
strength and microstructure variation, the DFI method is demonstrated
as a promising feasible, energy-efficient and cost-effective method to
perform heat treatment for aluminium alloys by integrating in the HFQ
process, and thus potentially improve the productivity. The evidenced
conclusions can be drawn: 1) hydrophilic surface of AA6082 samples
treated by DFI and furnace is beneficial for adhesive bonding; 2) surface
layer of DFI heated samples are comparable to those of conventional
furnace heated under high heating rates and short soaking time; 3) DFI
heating can reduce grain growth in AA6082 which usually occurred
when heating in a furnace with a long soaking time; 4) bonding shear
strength of assembles heat treated by DFI and furnace is similar, but
optimal surface cleaning and bonding processes need to be further in-
vestigated.
Acknowledgements
Financial support from Innovate UK (Grant number: 102777) and
the support of the RASTec partners (Impression Technologies Ltd.,
Imperial College London, Innoval Technology Ltd, Phoenix Calibration
and Services Ltd.) for this research project is gratefully acknowledged
by the authors. HFQ® is a registered trademark of Impression
Technologies Limited. Impression Technologies Limited is the sole li-
censee for the commercialization of the HFQ® technology from Imperial
College London.
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